Ernst Haeckel is well known for his fakery of embryos in the tailbud stage
of development. There is also the earlier issue of where Haeckel illegitimately
reprinted the same woodcut three times, alleging these three illustrations
represent different animals, while drawing conclusions from the (artificially
created) similarities. One historian makes a serious attempt to excuse Haeckel,
yet further analysis shows Haeckel’s deception is even worse than was
previously thought.

Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a controversial German scientist, who
was qualified as a zoologist and a medical doctor, as well as being passionate
about marine biology in particular. For more than a century, Haeckel has been
under scrutiny by both evolutionists as well as non-evolutionists. In 1997,
fury against Haeckel raged anew when a team of embryologists published photographs
of actual vertebrate embryos at the so-called ‘tailbud’ stage of
embryonic development. These showed a gross discrepancy between the pictures
Haeckel propagated to the public by his wildly popular evolution books and
lectures, and the actual data.1 Creationists2 and
honest or informed evolutionists3 were
furious, and Haeckel’s reputation rightfully became even more tarnished
than before.

Figure 1. The infamous triple woodcut in Haeckel’s
book Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte (1868). Haeckel alleged the same
woodcut represented a dog, chicken, and turtle.

In 2008, however, Robert John Richards, a distinguished historian at the University
of Chicago, made a serious attempt to rehabilitate the name of Ernst
Haeckel.4,5,6
In Countering
revisionism Part I,7 we refuted Richards’s
attempt to exonerate Haeckel from the charges of fraud or deliberate distortion
in regard to these tailbud stage embryos. However, even though those are of
primary importance, they are by no means the only such issue we need to look
at. In this paper, we will look at another issue at hand which questions Haeckel’s
honesty as a scientist, and which also generated controversy around Haeckel
during his lifetime.

Introduction to the ‘woodcut problem’

One of the first troubles in Haeckel’s career concerned illustrations
in the first edition (1868) of what would become his wildly popular book, Natürliche
Schöpfungsgeschichte.8 When the Swiss
zoologist, anatomist and palaeontologist Ludwig Rütimeyer reviewed the book
in 1868,9 he noticed that Haeckel had
used the same woodcut to print animal embryo illustrations of three
(quite) different types of animals. We must point out that the problem
is also that Haeckel tried to draw conclusions from these artificially created
similarities. In this case, Haeckel’s illustrations purported to represent
a dog, chicken, and turtle embryo at what Haeckel
coined to be the Sandal-stage (see figure 1).

The ‘Sandal-stage’ is an old term for the neurula embryo.10 This
is the phase when neurulation begins, i.e. the neural plate forms, then folds
to form the neural tube, the precursor to the brain and central nervous system.
It is also important to note that these embryos are generally in an earlier
stage than the usual Haeckelian embryos which we sometimes still find
in various textbooks in modern times. All this caused immense (and
appropriate) disapproval and criticism as being misleading and unscientific.
Rütimeyer was only the first of many people to launch complaints against Haeckel.
Naturally, Robert Richards spends some considerable time and space defending
Haeckel against the critics which he picked up over this particular episode.

Basis of claims

We will first treat the basic claims around these woodcuts in a (2008) Richards
paper named Haeckel’s Embryos: fraud not proven. Where space
allows, we will further consult claims in his book called The Tragic Sense
of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle Over Evolutionary Thought. In
this paper, Richards tells his readers:

“In the first edition (1868) of his wildly popular Natürliche
Schöpfungsgeschichte (Natural History of Creation), he used
the same wood cut three times to represent the initial formation of embryos
of dog, chicken, and turtle. When a reviewer noticed this (Rütimeyer 1868),
Haeckel defended himself by arguing you could not tell the differences among
these vertebrates at this very early-stage [sic]; and given the instrumentation
at the time, this was true. He nonetheless recognized that he egregiously
erred and immediately corrected the text in the next edition two years later.”11

Instrumentation of ‘that time’

As above, Richards claims that one would not have been capable of seeing the
differences between these embryos in neurulation due to the instrumentation
of the time. He repeated this claim less directly in his book: “at these
very early stages the morphology of higher vertebrates appears essentially
the same, at least as resolvable with mid-nineteenth-century equipment”.12 This
claim is frankly astounding—for several reasons, and we will show why
it is ultimately false.

A brief history of the microscope in the 1st half of the 19th century13

The microscope and optical methods or instrumentation went through remarkable
development and improvement during the Victorian era. This meant that microscopic
objects could now be seen clearly and distinguishably under the microscope,
whereas in previous times, such objects were blurred and the images surrounded
by coloured ‘fringes’. Indeed, by the 1830s, it became possible
to construct lenses in which this chromatic aberration was largely corrected.
Objects viewed under the microscope were also corrected for spherical aberration,
as a result of the work of Joseph Jackson Lister (1786–1869).14

As a result of the very clear images from the achromatic, compound microscopes,
microscopic studies of plant and animal tissues were now starting to take the
high ground. Instruments from the 1830s and 1840s were now superior to previous
microscopes (especially from the pre-achromatic days), and could by this stage
reach a maximum resolution of about 1 μm. (This figure was obtained by Pieter
H. van Cittert,15 using a Nobert test
plate.16) This is smaller than many eukaryotic
cell components—e.g. nucleus, nucleolus, wall thickness, vacuoles,
some mitochondria—let alone the whole cell.

An important landmark for the history of microscopy occurred when 17 gentlemen
met on 3 September 1839. As a result of this, the ‘Microscopic Society
of London’ was formed, which soon reached 115 members, with the famous
anti-Darwinian anatomist and paleontologist Richard Owen (1804–1892)
as its first president. The society later received Royal Charter when it became
known as the Royal Microscopical Society. This provided much incentive
for instrument makers to develop better instruments. From here on, the microscope
made several upward developments by several instrument makers in several countries.

Contradiction to other claims by Richards himself

In an earlier 2004 essay on Ernst Haeckel, Richards tells his readers the
following in regards to the young Haeckel as a medical student at Würzburg,
under Swiss anatomist and physiologist Albert von Kölliker (1817–1905):

“Kölliker taught histology and introduced Haeckel to what
would quickly flower into a sweet delight …

“Under the affable tutelage of Kölliker, he [Haeckel] grew
to love precise work in histology, especially since he had a talent with the
microscope. He could simultaneously peer with one eye through the lens and
with the other draw in exquisite detail the minute structures of tissues. ‘Vivant
cellulae! Vivat Microscopia!’ he exulted to his father at Christmas 1853.”17

Richards also repeats these claims verbatim in his book.18 To
anybody who knows that histology is the study of microscopic anatomy of cells
and tissues of plants and animals, a patently obvious question must surely
come to mind: if the instrumentation and mid-19th century
equipment were allegedly too poor or insufficient to see
differences between already multi-cellular neurula-embryos, how, then,
would it have been possible for both Haeckel as a student, as well as his professors
and lectures, to study histology? It is even more astounding that Richards
makes this claim about instrumentation in order to excuse Haeckel, when he
himself reveals that Haeckel was so talented with the microscope, and so skilled
with making drawings from what he saw.

Figure 2. A part of Plate XXVIII of Haeckel’s 1862
monograph on the Radiolaria.22 Here we
zoom in on the number 2, noticing that Haeckel even paid attention to many
fine details of these single-celled organisms such as spicule-like structures.

Moreover, Haeckel’s medical studies took place during the 1850s, while
the infamous triple woodcut pictures were published in 1868. One could also
not resist the temptation to point out that Richards tells us that Haeckel
took private tutorials in microscopy with Franz Leydig (1821–1908).19 Leydig
discovered what are known even today as Leydig cells (not mentioned by Richards).
These are found in the testes, and play an important role in releasing a class
of hormones called androgens. Leydig discovered these cells in 1850,20 which
is again much earlier than 1868, the time at which Richards alleges one could
not tell the differences in embryos due to instrumentation! Richards thus tries
to advance his pro-Haeckel arguments on the basis of his readers’ ignorance
about the history of the microscope and ‘instrumentation’.

Haeckel and the Radiolarians

If there is one thing which also shows the nonsensical nature of the claims
that a) the instrumentation of Haeckel’s time was insufficient and b)
Haeckel was only merely ‘sloppy’ with his embryo sketches, it is
Haeckel’s extensive work on the Radiolarians. These are protozoa (single-celled
eukaryotes) which secrete beautiful exoskeletons known as ‘tests’.
During his career, Haeckel classified literally thousands of them. The monograph
which first made him famous appeared in 1862.21,22 Of
this, Richards fondly tells us that:

“… he [Haeckel] provided the most careful description
of the distinguishing characteristics of the skeletons and soft parts, including extraordinarily
exact measurements [emphasis added].”23,24

Indeed, if we look for example at illustration number 2 of Plate XXVIII (of
his 1862 monograph), we see that Haeckel took care to even illustrate the fine,
spicule-like structures of the protozoan (see figure 2)!

Figure 3. Haeckel’s singular reproduction of the same
woodcut in later editions of his popular book Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte.25

Did Haeckel really improve?

Richards is proud to tell us that Haeckel “… nonetheless recognized
that he egregiously erred and immediately corrected the text in the next edition
two years later.” But we must ask: Did Haeckel really fundamentally
improve, or did he just become more ‘clever’ in his ways? The answer
is in some regards remarkable: although he did not repeat the woodcut in a
printed sequence again, he still used it in a singular print for countless
editions to come in Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte (see figure 3).
In the text of these later editions, Haeckel tells his readers about
this woodcut (though now only printed once) that:

“The thickened disc, or foundation of the embryo, soon assumes
an oblong, and then fiddle-shaped form, in consequence of its right and left
walls becoming convex (Fig. 7, p. 349). At this stage of development, in the
first form of their germ or embryo, not only all mammals, including man, but
even all vertebrate animals in general—birds, reptiles, amphibious
animals, and fishes—can either not be distinguished from one another
at all, or only by very unessential differences, such as size and the
arrangement of egg-coverings [emphasis added].”25

Haeckel repeats this claim again more or less just after this woodcut illustration,
when he says that:

“In the early stage of development which is represented in
Fig. 7, it seems as yet quite impossible to distinguish the embryos
of the different mammals, birds, and reptiles, from one another [emphasis
added].”26,27

So let us get clarity about what Haeckel is really saying to his readers in
the later editions: he now not only alleges that this woodcut represents exactly
what a dog, chicken, and turtle look like at this
stage. No, now he alleges in the text of the book that all mammals
as well as all vertebrates, including fishes and amphibians look like
that woodcut at the neurula-stage. In principle, that is not at all an improvement;
in fact, it is actually far worse! The embryo woodcut just wasn’t
physically reprinted again. But this visual representation (the woodcut) has
now been stretched even further!

Richards’ false premises, and why embryos at these early stages (including
at neurulation) do not appear nearly identical

What is remarkable is not only Haeckel’s assertions, but also the false
premises on which Robert Richards bases his whole defence of Haeckel and his
scholarship. In his book, Richards tells his readers that:

“… aside from the size of eggs or of embryos, at these
very early stages the morphology of higher vertebrates appears essentially
the same, at least as resolvable with mid-nineteenth-century
equipment.”12

In the same paragraph, the supposed similarity in the early stages of embryonic
development is stated as fact:

“… given the circumstances of a popular presentation
[of evolution] and the fact that embryos at these early stages cannot
be distinguished [emphasis added]”.

Then, in the next chapter which is dedicated to defending Haeckel against
his critics, Richards again tells us:

“… [given] the fact that morphological structures of
vertebrate eggs and early embryos are almost impossible to distinguish… .”28

So Richards himself believes that embryos are nearly identical or
indistinguishable in the earlier stages. Yet nothing could be further from
the truth! Had Richards himself bothered to look at basic comparative
embryology, he would have found that different animal groups display different developmental
patterns, even from the earliest stages.

Even pregraduate students of zoology or biology, taking courses in embryology
would typically get to compare, using four or so animal groups, such things
as the embryo’s cleavage and blastulation, gastrulation, and neurulation.

Take for example mere cleavage and blastulation, where the fertilized egg,
called the zygote, starts to undergo cell division (and in some cases forms
a hollow ball, called the blastula). In the Branchiostoma, we observe equal
holoblastic cleavage; in amphibians, we observe unequal holoblastic
cleavage. In reptiles and birds, we observe a discoblastic pattern
and in most mammals, and humans specifically, we find rotational cleavage,29 which
leads to a trophoblastic pattern.30

Figure 4. Two examples of animals which clearly break the
visual pattern—taken from old literature. A) Common
frog (Rana).50B) Australian/Queensland
lungfish (Neoceratodus)35 in
the relevant period of development.

These different patterns also make these embryos visually distinct—indeed,
pregraduate students must be capable of identifying these embryos (based on
their differences) in the laboratory, and low magnification is sufficient.
And these stages are still long before the stage where embryos undergo neurulation,
yet differences are already visible. Robert Richards is thus flat out wrong,
and he uses this wrong premise to fence off Haeckel’s critics.
Ironically, a careful reading of Haeckel’s works in general reveals that
Haeckel himself was aware of differences in early developmental stages
such as cleavage and gastrulation.31

Returning to the embryos in neurulation, which Haeckel referred to as in the
Sandal stage, again, we can make comparisons between the above four groups
of creatures, for example, and find they are not visually the same
or virtually identical, let alone ‘quite impossible to distinguish from
one another’, as Haeckel asserted.32 We
can further look more specifically at species or genus level, and come to the
same conclusion (see this footnote33 for
extensive documentation).

Since Haeckel extended this woodcut to all vertebrates from the second
editions of Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte and onwards, it is worthwhile
looking at an example or two which break the visual pattern sufficiently. Amphibians
in general and frogs34 in particular,
as well as lungfishes (Australian,35,36 South
American, and African37) are indeed clearly
distinguishable from the woodcut Haeckel printed (see figure 4). This is true
of overall impressions, which are distinctive enough, as well as finer detail,
to which Haeckel did pay attention. For example, on this particular woodcut,
he marked certain primitive features, explaining them in the caption as follows: Fore
brain (v), Twixt brain (z), Mid brain (m), Hind brain (h), After brain (n),
Spinal marrow (p), Eye-bladder (a), Primitive vertebrae (w), Spinal axis or
notochord (d) (see figure 3).38 Interestingly
enough, it seems to be exactly in the visual representations of some of these
very structures that we also find differences, if we compare this woodcut to
illustrations of other animals, which were produced by contemporary scientists
of Haeckel’s time. Haeckel’s woodcut seems to be that of a placental
mammal. He cannot be salvaged by claiming ignorance of these details. He indeed
paid attention to them!

Figure 5. Chick embryo at more or less the same stage as
Haeckel’s woodcut, from literature of Haeckel’s own time and country.
Here we can clearly see developing heart structures. (From Brass40).

One last relevant criticism to be made against both the original triple woodcut
print and the print in following editions is that the chick embryo
at this stage should clearly display a developing heart ventricle, as well
as other primordia at the atrial level.39 Again,
we find clear demonstration of these features even in Haeckel’s own time
and country. Figure 5 shows a chick embryo illustration of an 1882 book by
Arnold Brass,40 who himself borrowed it
from Haeckel’s teacher Albert von Kölliker. But Haeckel’s woodcut
has no trace of the heart, and there can be no excuse for leaving out such
an essential feature.

Heterochrony

There is one last proverbial spanner in the wheel to wreck the Haeckel/Richards
claim that all vertebrate embryos are nearly identical at the earlier stages
of development. This is the principle of heterochrony. This is an
evolutionary term which indicates changes in the time of appearance of, or
rate of development of, specific anatomical characteristics and features in
the embryo.41,42 This
can practically translate into one holding a certain parameter (in embryonic
development) constant over a range of different kinds of vertebrates (for example
the number of somites or pharyngeal arches, or appearance of organs etc.),
while finding that other parameters or features will then differ considerably
between these vertebrate sample species.

Indeed, the famous 1997 Richardson et al. paper which also dropped
the bomb on Haeckel’s 1874 sequence of ‘tailbud’ embryos,
has the title, of which the first part reads “There is no highly conserved
embryonic stage in the vertebrates”, and heterochrony is also discussed
in this paper.1 An earlier paper of Richardson
named Heterochrony and the Phylotypic Period presents even more problems
with defining any clearly conserved ‘stage’ in which embryos vary
very little from one another—because heterochrony obscures such conservation.43 It
seems from these papers than heterochrony is the rule, rather than the exception.
So we know that Haeckel’s illustrations and conclusions could not have
come from nature.

Of course, the natural question arises as to whether Haeckel himself was in
any way aware of this phenomenon. The answer is a remarkable ‘yes’!
The word heterochrony was coined by none other than Haeckel himself,
and used to describe “exceptions” to his theory of recapitulation.44 (It
was one of Haeckel’s many neologisms, which include phylum, anthropogeny,
ecology, stem cell, Protista, phylogeny, and ontogeny.) And there is a good
indication that he made original contributions to the topic himself!45

Legitimate schematizations?

Both Haeckel and Richards allege that Haeckel’s embryo illustrations
are simply legitimately ‘schematized’ illustrations. Haeckel states
(as quoted by Richards):

“I believe that for didactic purposes simple schematic figures
(especially for a larger public) are far more useful and instructive than illustrations
that are as faithful to nature as possible and most carefully executed.”46

Later in his book, Richards himself endorses this view (first stating the
false premise that these embryos really are almost impossible to distinguish
from one another):

“… it might seem a reasonable economy to replicate
the same images and use them as a device to pound home the message in a popular
work meant for a nonprofessional audience.”28

However, the famous palaeontologist (and anticreationist) Stephen Jay Gould
(1941–2002) came to exactly the opposite conclusion about literature
and illustrations for non-experts. He comments on similar reasoning by others,
as follows:

“But I confess to raging fundamentalism on this issue. The
smallest compromise in dumbing down by inaccuracy destroys integrity and places
the author upon a slippery slope of no return.”47

And in regard to Haeckel’s own illustrations, Gould makes the following
important points:

“This practice cannot be defended in any sense, but distortions
in technical monographs cause minimal damage, because they rarely receive attention
from readers without enough professional knowledge to recognize the fabrications. ‘Improved’ illustrations
masquerading as accurate drawings spell much more trouble in popular books
intended for general audiences lacking the expertise to separate a misleading
idealization from a genuine signal from nature.”47

And contrary to how Haeckel himself reasoned in regards to this matter,
Paul Dombrowski, a specialist in rhetoric, points out in a paper about Haeckel,
in an almost euphemistic manner:

“Though a popular audience can perhaps be forgiven for enjoying
to see things as they prefer to see them to seem [sic], among careful
scientists the more satisfying pleasure is to see things as they are empirically
shown to be, and to accept that.”48

So how, then, would we separate a schematic illustration from a fabrication?
One of the reasonably simple criteria is that the illustration must convey exactly
the same message and points which the original material in nature does,
and represent nature as faithfully as possible in that regard. Yet with Haeckel’s
illustrations, exactly the opposite is true. The altered illustrations support
theories which the originals do not. So it’s not unreasonable
to call them fakes or fraudulent.

Honest vs dishonest ‘mistakes’

Richards admits in his book4 that Haeckel
made a ‘mistake’ with the triple print of the same woodcut. But
not without a twist. He tries to persuade his readers that Haeckel basically
only made an honest mistake, a mere error in judgement, a mere lapse
(pp. 303, 333–334), and that each scientist since yesteryear got certain
things wrong (p. 453). Haeckel himself reasoned more or less the same way,
that he made a ‘mistake’ (see pp. 299 and 302).

There is a big difference between making honest
mistakes (which can happen to all human beings) and propagating things
known to be wrong.

However, there is a big difference between making honest mistakes
(which can happen to all human beings) and propagating things known to
be wrong—in spite of the truth, or contrary to the evidence. To take
a simple, hypothetical example: a person accidentally injuring a family member
while cleaning a gun (due to negligence or whatever), for example, has made
a serious but an honest mistake. A man cheating on his wife, or a
person deliberately shooting someone in order to murder, are most certainly
not making honest mistakes (though their actions can later be seen as ‘mistakes’ nonetheless
if the miscreant is caught and punished). And it is quite amusing to read Haeckel
and Richards referring to Wilhelm His and “many other ‘exact’ pedants” (p.
302). Yet Haeckel was quite exact when it suited him, like with the Radiolarians,
for example, as even pointed out by Richards himself!

The previous points in this paper should convince the reader that Haeckel’s
triple woodcut print is very unlikely to be just an honest mistake.
And why could Haeckel not have printed the woodcut only once from the very
beginning, when referring to the dog, chicken, and turtle? (Even though this
would still be problematic, it would be less blatant than the triple printing).
No, it seems far more likely that Haeckel pushed his luck in order to argue
forcefully for evolutionary theory. And he happened to have (appropriately)
burned his fingers.

Conclusion

Although not all of the complaints made against Haeckel during his lifetime
may have been valid, the original complaint about Haeckel and his triple printed
woodcut in itself certainly is. All indications are that Haeckel knew
full well what he was doing. Even though we could not treat every claim
made by Richards, his attempts to salvage Haeckel rest on false premises, ignorance
about the good light microscopes of Haeckel’s time, as well as ignorance
of embryology. Richards is also caught contradicting himself. In this study,
old literature was predominantly used for visual comparison of embryos—so
the complaint cannot be made that we played Haeckel off against ‘modern’ knowledge.

It is further noticeable that Richards seems to have mostly only resurrected
many of Haeckel’s own excuses49 for
his triple woodcut print (but also the tailbud stage illustrations treated
in Part I) in philosophizing about the ‘mistake’—often trying
to obscure the obvious. He is thus not a neutral observer commenting on events.
Moreover, in writing and philosophizing about this issue, Richards seems to
commit the fallacy of composition—he reasons and draws conclusions
about this episode as if it was something that happened in isolation. However,
if we take Haeckel’s work and consider the overall picture, the conclusions
are different—notably that this is one more of Haeckel’s several
fabrications. We must ultimately come to the conclusion that Ernst Haeckel
was no honest scientist, and ultimately deceptive (and maybe even
fraudulent) about this matter, too.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr Jonathan Sarfati and Daniel Davidson for
their trouble and contributions to this paper; for their helpful suggestions,
additions and reviews.

Haeckel, H., Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte, G. Reimer, Berlin,
1868. Literal translation of the German title: ‘Natural History of
Creation’; English title: The History of Creation, or the development
of the Earth and its inhabitants by the action of natural causes: A popular
exposition of the doctrine of evolution in general, and that of Darwin, Goethe,
and Lamarck in particular, First English edn translated by Prof. Ray
Lankester, Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 1876. Return
to text.

After Friedrich Adolph Nobert (1806–1881), who developed a machine
that could rule very fine parallel lines into glass, down to only 0.11 μm,
below the limit of the optical microscope. Return
to text.

Lustig, A., Richards, R.J. and Ruse, M., Darwinian Heresies,
Cambridge University Press, 2004. In the essay by Robert J. Richards called,
If This Be Heresy: Haeckel’s Conversion to Darwinism, pp. 104–105. Return
to text.

In order to have gotten the perspective right for his illustrations, Richards
points out that Haeckel also often needed to employ potatoes in which he
stuck rods. Return to text.

Haeckel, E., The History of Creation, or the development of the Earth
and its inhabitants by the action of natural causes: A popular exposition
of the doctrine of evolution in general, and that of Darwin, Goethe, and
Lamarck in particular, 4th English edn translated from
the 8th German edn by Prof. E. Ray Lankester, D. Appleton & Co.
New York, p. 344, 1892. Return to text.

Just to be clear that he made this claim in other editions of the book
too, we point out that this statement is also found word for word in the
1876 English edn, translated also by Lankester, published by Henry S. King & Co.,
London, p. 305, 1876. Return to text.

Oberholzer, G., Van Hamburg, H. and Swanepoel, J.H., The Early Embryogenesis
of Biparental Chordates, pp. 53–54. This is a set of notes in
book form, from which students study embryology at pre-graduate level at
a well-known university of South Africa. All three authors are (full) professors
at various universities in South Africa. Return
to text.

Richardson and Keuck, ref. 10, p. 507. Note, Richards not only references
this source, but was actually asked to check this article before publication!
So he is truly without excuse! Return to text.

In the extensive text of: Nelson O.E., Comparative Embryology of the
Vertebrates, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1953, compare the following diagrams
which are relevant: For the lancelet Amphioxus, see figure 247
(E), (F), and (G) on p. 501. For the shark Squalus acanthias,
see figure 229 (A), (B), (C), and (D) on p. 475. For the trout Salmo
fario, see figure 211 (G) on p. 440. For a common frog (species not
given, but likely in the genus Rana), see figure 220 (A) on p.
462. For the common Mudpuppy Necturus maculosus (which is a salamander),
see figure 227 (B), (C), and (D). For a common turtle (species not given),
see figure 231 ( L), (M), ( N), and (O) on p. 479. For a common chick embryo
(like that of the genus Gallus, which also includes the domestic
chicken), see figure 232 (A), (I), and (J) on p. 480, as well as figure
233 (A) and (B) on p. 481. Placental mammals: for the pig, see figure 242
(A), (B), (D), (E), and (F) on p. 496. For a human, see figure 245 (A)
on p. 499. It would be good to obtain more pictures of the neurulation
process for humans. Return to text.

See again, Nelson, ref. 33, figure 220 (A) on p. 462, as well as figure
219 (A) on p. 460. Return to text.

Semon, R., In The Australian Bush And On The Coast Of The Coral Sea,
Macmillan and Co., London, p. 99, 1899. This work also gives a plate of the
embryology of the Australian lungfish, though less detailed than the Keibel
work in the previous reference. Ironically, Semon was a student of Haeckel’s,
and he dedicated this book to his master. Return
to text.

Haeckel, E., The History of Creation, 4th English
edn, translated (from the 8th German edn) by Lankester, E.R.,
D. Appleton & Co, New York, p. 349, 1892; caption to figure 7. Take note,
in the caption itself, Haeckel said that the illustration applied to a mammal
or a bird. But in the main text he clearly said that it applied to all vertebrates. Return
to text.

For example, see what Haeckel wrote in The Evolution of Man,
vol. I, D. Appleton & Co., New York, pp. xxxiv–xxxvi, 1897: “I,
however, consider that diagrams are much more instructive than such [exact,
and technically correct] figures, especially in popular scientific works.
For each simple diagrammatic figure gives only those essential form-features
which it is intended to explain, and omits all those unessential details
which in finished, exact figures, generally rather disturb and confuse than
instruct and explain.” Note, in this English translation, the word “diagrammatic” is
used, while in the original German, “schematischen”, is used,
which Richards correctly translated as “schematic”. In regards
to leaving out supposedly unessential details, Daniel Davidson, in ref. 5
(p. 50) noticed how Richards reasoned along the same lines: That it was (and
is) standard practice to remove peculiar traits and markings of a particular
embryo to produce a standardized depiction. However, some of the things Haeckel
left out, such as heart bulges, are not unessential at all, and his neurula
embryos (as well as his tailbud stage embryos, treated in Part I) are given
to the reader for overall comparison. It seems rather that Haeckel conveniently
left out features that broke visual similarity. Return
to text.

They say the Bible has been proven wrong by science. Whoever said that hasn’t been to creation.com. Please give so we can give … information that leads people to Christ our Savior. Support this site

Comments closed

Readers’ comments

George J.,Canada, 27 September 2013

On a flight from Singapore to London, I sat next to a British doctor. I asked him about recapitulation, and he fully supported it in no uncertain terms. Although, I had given away most of my Creation magazine issues in Malaysia, I had one copy left, and you guessed it. It was the issue with the comparison of Richardson and Haeckel. (I try to have at least one in my cabin luggage. It’s amazing how many conversations you can start with, “Did you know that it's the male seahorse that gets pregnant?”)

Anyway, the doctor scanned the article and looked at the pictures. I asked him if he wanted to keep the magazine. He said , “No.” I asked him if he still thought recapitulation were true. His exact words, “Well, if it isn’t; it should be.” I guess Peter covered this attitude with “willfully ignorant”.

Garth B.,Australia, 28 September 2013

Can somebody please explain how recapitulation (even if it were true) would be evidence for evolution? I cannot for the life of me see the significance in it, or why it would be evidence either way. Why would evolution require embryos to resemble each other but not the adult animal (apart from inconsistent studies in homology)?

Thank you

E. van Niekerk responds

Thanks for your comment and question. Alleged embryonic recapitulation is significant, because it was one of the earliest forceful arguments for Darwinian evolution. The evolutionists thought that if they could show we are animals in the womb, then it proves our animal ancestry. They also believed that the way embryos developed could tell them what the ancestrial trees (phylogenies) looked like of various organisms.

Although there were traces of recapitulation theories before Ernst Haeckel entered the scene, Haeckel was the one who rigorously formalized it. Charles Darwin then also picked the myth up, and wrote about it in the early pages of his book on human evolution—The Descent of Man.

Although most text books today do not use the exact original version of recapitulation theory anymore, it has left its proverbial ‘offspring’, which we still have to deal with today. For example, a textbooks may indeed admit that recapitulation is not quite true, but they will allege that embryos at a certain ‘stage’ of development still resemble one another very closely, and that it is evidence for evolution. They often ascribe this to a 19th century embryologist, Karl Ernst von Baer. But both those statements are untrue of course. The iconic embryos lined up in a row, which look very similar, was something that Haeckel, not von Baer introduced (besides the fact that von Baer was a creationist). And there is no such thing as a highly conserved stage where vertebrate embryos resemble one another very closely, to begin with, as both my articles (Part I and II) clearly show.

We also find that some evolutionists and textbooks use just a modified version of recapitulation, saying that the embryos don’t recapitulate the adult forms of ‘lower’ animal embryos, but the embryonic forms of their ancestors. This is usually based on dubious evidence, such as calling the throat pouches, or pharyngeal arches ‘gill slits’, despite that being disproven over and over again.

This icon is also important, because it has been used to argue in favour of abortion, saying that you are only killing a ‘fish’ or another animal in the womb.

But to return to your original question: Ernst Haeckel needed recapitulation to be true, because he needed forceful arguments for evolution. He hated the God of the Bible, and evolution was the only alternative. Evolutionists today, likewise need forceful visual rhetoric to persuade students and people that evolution is true.

I hope that helps answer your question.

Blessings,

EvN.

Mike J.,Canada, 1 October 2013

“I believe that for didactic purposes simple schematic figures … are far more useful and instructive than illustrations that are as faithful to nature as possible...”—Haeckel

—The great enemy of the evolutionist is reality.

D. W.,United States, 2 October 2013

As a Biology teacher of over 50 years I shudder at the memories of how many times I used the “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” phrase in my teaching. Just as epigenetics is changing how we should teach DNA activity, we must get the word out to Biologists of this fraudulent idea. The evolutionists also won’t accept the clear evidence that their teachings are behind the moral disintegration of our nation.